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What Plan Sponsors Want to Know About Financial Wellness

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Several years back the concept of “wellness” crept into benefits planning. More recently, HR’s affinity for that wellness concept has been expanded upon by the concept of financial wellness. But as appealing as the notion is, a number of key questions linger. With regard to wellness generally, the notion was simple: Rather than just treating the symptoms of poor health with insurance-funded trips to the doctor (or the hospital) after the damage was done, we’d get ahead of things by emphasizing healthy habit steps (smoking cessation, weight loss, etc.) programs that would reduce doctor bills (and insurance premiums). As regards financial wellness, the notion is that bad financial health contributes to (and/or causes) a bevy of woes: stress, which can lead to things like lower productivity, bad health and higher absenteeism, and even a greater inclination toward workplace theft, not to mention deferred retirements by workers who tend to be higher salaried and who have higher health